College & Research Libraries News (C&RL News) is the official newsmagazine and publication of record of the Association of College & Research Libraries, providing articles on the latest trends and practices affecting academic and research libraries.

About The Author

Gary Pattillo is reference librarian at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, e-mail: pattillo@email.unc.edu

Gary Pattillo is reference librarian at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, e-mail: pattillo@email.unc.edu

The Internet Archive and government data

As the federal government experiences administrative changes, the Internet Archive has responded. “Between Fall 2016 and Spring 2017, the Internet Archive archived over 200 terabytes of government websites and data. This includes over 100TB of public websites and over 100TB of public data from federal FTP file servers totaling, together, over 350 million URLs/files. This includes over 70 million html pages and over 40 million PDFs.”

Civic design

“Civic design is a growing field. As governments, NGOs, newspapers, and activist groups are feeling increased pressure to effectively employ media and technology to engage or mobilize constituents, what used to be standard communications or information technology positions are demanding different skill sets. These positions, sometimes reframed as ‘innovation,’ require a level of creative problem solving and critical thinking, as well as comfort with participatory methodologies, that didn’t exist before. Necessary skills for civic designers include co-design, sideways thinking, prototyping, and measuring value.”

Audiobooks

The Audio Publishers Association “estimates that audiobook sales in 2016 totaled more than $2.1 billion, up 18.2 percent over 2015, and with a corresponding 33.9 percent increase in units. This is the third consecutive year that audiobook sales have expanded by nearly 20 percent. Nearly half (48 percent) of frequent audiobook listeners are under 35. Audiobook listeners are often also podcast listeners. (Listeners) who consumed both podcasts and audiobooks listened to twice as many audiobooks in the past 12 months as nonpodcast consumers. Avid readers are also listening. Audiobook listeners read or listened to an average of 15 books in the last year.”

Virtual schools

“While the average student-teacher ratio in the nation’s public schools was 16 students per teacher, virtual schools reported more than twice as many students per teacher: 34. The average in blended schools (hybrid virtual and traditional) was only very slightly lower: 33. The highest student-teacher ratio was in virtual schools operated by for-profit EMOs (education management organizations) (44), while the lowest was in those operated by virtual nonprofit EMOs (19.5). Virtual schools continued to underperform academically, including in comparison to blended schools. Overall, 37.4 percent of full-time virtual schools received acceptable performance ratings, compared with 72.7 percent acceptable ratings for blended schools. A much higher percentage of blended schools received acceptable ratings in the 2015–16 school year as compared to the prior year, thus reversing their underwhelming academic results: last year’s inventory found that blended schools were not doing much better than virtual schools.”